Epilogue
Harry
Six months.
Six months since I stood in a sterile hospital hallway, fists clenched at my sides, staring at a red digital clock above the operating room doors while the woman I love was unconscious on a table.
Six months since I paced like an animal and nearly lost my mind waiting to hear if she and our daughter were alive.
The recovery wasn’t easy. Not with the unexpected surgery, the hormone swings, the pain.
Elena hated asking for help, hated how limited her body felt — every step, every shift in the bed, every time Clementine needed to be fed or changed or rocked, and her body ached too much to do it herself.
But she let me help. And the trust in that, the way she leaned into it with me, still brings me to my knees when I think about it too hard.
Some days she still moves carefully. She rubs at the scar on her lower belly like it’ll change or like she’s not entirely convinced it’s real.
But she’s stronger now. Soft, in all the best ways, but with steel running through her.
It suits her — it’s like she’s finally stopped being what others tried to carve her into and is just becoming who she was always supposed to be.
Sarah and Tamsin are staying with us this week, taking up Elena’s old spot in the cottage.
Sarah’s been cooing over Clementine every morning while Tamsin pretends she’s too cool to care, then melts the second the baby makes a sound.
It’s good for Elena, having Sarah here. There’s a calm in her eyes when they’re sitting on the couch, shoulders brushing, voices hushed.
It’s the kind of comfort I can’t give her, and not because I don’t want to, but because it’s not a bond I can give her.
I wasn’t the one who shared a bed with her when the nights got scary or whispered secrets in the backseat of a car or waited out the long silences at the dinner table with Gail and Ralph sitting like damn sentinels at either end.
I hesitate outside of the conservatory, standing in the doorway, the morning sun beaming through the glass.
Clementine’s asleep in Elena’s arms, and Sarah’s leaning back with a steaming cup of tea in her hands.
Tamsin’s walking the perimeter like it’s her duty to check the plants, her fingers touching the leaves of a giant monstera.
“It’s just strange,” Sarah says, her voice quiet. “You’d think they’d at least ask about her. Or you. Or something.”
Elena doesn’t look up from Clem, just strokes her back soothingly. “They’re not built that way.”
“No,” Sarah sighs, “but I hoped maybe… I don’t know. I told them about Tamsin. Told them everything, actually. The years of sneaking around, all of it. They didn’t explode or kick me out or talk about how it would look in the press. They just sort of… blinked. And pretended it didn’t happen.”
Elena looks at her, then, offering her a soft smile. “You told them, though. That’s the part that matters. Proud of you for it.”
“They’re still emotionally constipated,” Sarah mutters.
“Oh, absolutely. Painfully.”
I watch quietly, seeing the way the light catches Elena’s face as she fully grins.
She looks rested today, peaceful — as she should.
I handled the middle-of-the-night cries last night.
But god, she looks stunning. Always stunning, even when her hair’s a mess and she’s still in pajamas at three in the afternoon.
But now there’s a stillness to her, this gravity that sucks me in like it was made for me.
She’s not just beautiful, she’s everything, she’s home.
“Hey,” I say eventually, stepping into the room with two mugs of coffee. Elena’s head turns, and that look — the one she gives me too often, like I hung the stars just for her — never stops wrecking me.
“You’re interrupting sister time,” she says, but she’s smiling as she shifts just carefully enough not to wake Clem, giving me space to sit.
I hesitate. “Oh? Should I put your coffee back in the kitchen, then?”
“No! No, no, no, please.”
I chuckle and set it down on the glass table in front of her, then lower myself gently onto the cushion.
“Got a call from Grace while I was in the kitchen,” I say, mentally checking for the millionth time that Clem is actually breathing and not just lying there.
“She said George wants to visit. Just for a day or two.”
Elena’s eyes widen slightly. “Seriously?”
“He wants to meet her,” I murmur, reaching out just enough to stroke Clem’s arm with the back of my fingers. “I think he’s trying.”
Elena pauses, then nods. “Good. That’s good.”
I lift my gaze to hers. “You’re okay with that?”
“I am,” she says softly. “You deserve to try to have a relationship with your son, Harry.”
She leans into me, her head resting on my shoulder, the weight of Clementine resting just barely between us. I could happily sit like this for the rest of my life, even with Elena’s hand reaching out and squeezing and empty air, a silent request for Sarah to hand her her coffee.
Sarah rolls her eyes and obliges.
“I’ve been thinking,” Elena says, taking a sip with her head pointedly turned as far from Clem’s head as possible. Always so nervous about accidentally spilling things on her. “I want to go to Switzerland. Soon. I didn’t get to go for the grand opening. I want to see it.”
Sarah rolls her eyes. “That resort is ridiculous. The photos are insane.”
I shoot her a look.
“I’m just being honest!”
Elena rolls her eyes, a smirk playing at her lips. “The resort is nice,” she counters. “And I want to meet the events team there in person, talk through the plans for the summer and winter season. And obviously see what I missed out on.”
“It was perfect, for the record,” I grin, pressing a kiss to the side of her head. “Even without you there. Everyone said so.”
“Yeah, yeah,” she grumbles. “But I want to go. And then maybe Bangkok after, spend a few days there, see what kind of local partnerships we can set up. I’ve got ideas for destination wedding packs.”
Sarah blinks at her. “You’re going to take the baby halfway across the world?”
Elena shrugs, looking up at me. “Only if her father comes.”
Clementine squirms slightly, and I lift her gently into my arms, kiss her nose. She makes a tiny snuffling sound that tugs at something inside my chest. “Anywhere you two go, I go,” I murmur.
It’s not just a promise. It’s the truth. Elena changed everything, took a life I thought had already had its run of fulfillment, and revealed how hollow it had been for years. She gave me a daughter, a partner, a home — not the house, not the Hall, not the legacy.
Her.
And maybe someday, when we’re older and Clementine’s grown and the world for us is quieter, we’ll sit on the porch of that cabin on the preserve, and I’ll tell her that this, all of this, was what I’d been unknowingly waiting for twelve years to have.
My family. My home. My second chance, and my everything.
Finally.
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